As White House Keeps Up Criticism, GOP Defends Starr

Report: Lewinsky told another friend about Clinton

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 8) -- Clinton administration officials kept up a drumbeat of criticism of independent counsel Kenneth Starr Sunday, but some key Republicans accused the White House of unfairly targeting Starr to deflect attention from President Bill Clinton's role in the Monica Lewinsky controversy.

Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine, citing sources "close to the president's defense" is reporting that Lewinsky told another friend, Ashley Raines, about her alleged affair with Clinton.

A source close to the investigation tells CNN that Raines, an Arkansan who now works in the White House Office of Administration, has been questioned in great detail by Starr's staff and has given detailed accounts of what Lewinsky told her of an alleged sexual relationship with the president.

Raines

Newsweek is reporting that Raines told Starr's investigators that she heard tape-recorded phone messages left on Lewinsky's answering machine by the president.

Raines and her lawyer, Wendy White, could not be reached for comment. Starr refused to confirm or deny the report, citing rules regarding the secrecy of grand jury testimony.

In yet another twist to the case, Raines' mother is the manager of the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas -- where former state employee Paula Jones says Clinton propositioned her in 1991. It was Jones' lawsuit over that incident that helped precipitate the Lewinsky controversy.

Begala: Starr has become 'corrupt'

Begala

Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," senior Clinton adviser Paul Begala made one of the strongest attacks yet on Starr and his conduct of the investigation into charges that Clinton had an affair with Lewinsky and then asked her to lie about it under oath.

"Ken Starr has become corrupt, in a sense that Lord Acton meant when he said that absolute power corrupts absolutely," Begala said, accusing the independent counsel of "firing off subpoenas as if he's got an Uzi."

Begala also said that alleged leaks from Starr's office of secret grand jury testimony regarding the Lewinsky matter "might be criminal, a much more serious crime, frankly, than signing a false affidavit by a 24-year-old kid in a civil lawsuit," a reference to Jones' suit. Lewinsky gave a sworn affidavit in that matter, denying any affair with Clinton.

Clinton's personal lawyer, David Kendall, is expected to go into court Monday and ask for sanctions to be imposed against Starr for the leaks, which have also drawn fire from Lewinsky's attorney, Bill Ginsburg.

Starr reiterated Sunday that he would investigate whether anyone in his office has been the source of leaks to the news media.

"We are examining it," he told reporters outside his home. "When serious charges are made, we take them seriously.

"We should find out what the facts are. That's what we're trying to do in the investigation."

Lott: Attacks on Starr 'out of order'

Starr

Some Republicans Sunday accused the White House of trying to divert attention from the swirl of allegations surrounding the Lewinsky controversy by going after Starr.

"I think that the attack is totally out of order," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on CBS's "Face The Nation." "It's the typical MO for this administration -- attack your accuser, any accuser, try to discredit them, to destroy them."

"It appears to me that Ken Starr is a man of high integrity ... and this, once again, is an effort to get away from the real story, the truth, what happened."

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who heads a House committee investigating alleged campaign finance irregularities by the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, says he doubts Starr is leaking information about grand jury proceedings because Starr has told him "that no information that's before the grand jury would be given to me or anybody."

"I am confident that this man of integrity would never do that," Burton said.

Richardson: Interview with Lewinsky 'not unusual'

Also Sunday, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, on CNN's "Late Edition," said that he was asked to interview Lewinsky for a low-level public relations job at the U.N. mission in New York late last year by Deputy White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

Richardson said he personally interviewed her at the Watergate Hotel, where he often stayed while in Washington and where Lewinsky's family owns an apartment. But the ambassador said it was "not unusual" for him to conduct such an interview for a position that was considered a political appointment.

"I get asked by a number of people in the Congress and the administration in the White House to consider people. But I'm never pressured. I think everybody knows that I make decisions on my own," Richardson said.

"(Lewinsky) impressed me in the interview as somebody with background, with experience in this area," he said. "I offered her the position. She turned it down. She wanted to go into the private sector."

CNN White House Correspondents Eileen O'Connor and John King contributed to this report.